Visa Profit Rises 28% as Results Top Wall Street Views

Visa Inc.'s earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter rose 28%, driven by higher payments volume and the card company's acquisition of Visa Europe.

Payments volume for the quarter ended Sept. 30 increased 47% on a constant-dollar basis to $1.9 trillion, buoyed by the purchase of Visa Europe.

Over all, Visa earned $1.93 billion, or 79 cents a Class A share, up from $1.51 billion, or 62 cents Class A share, a year earlier. Earnings excluding items were 78 cents a share.

Operating revenue rose to $4.26 billion from $3.57 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 73 cents a share on revenue of $4.23 billion.

Visa said last week that Chief Executive Charles Scharf is resigning after informing the board that he can no longer spend enough time in San Francisco "to do the job effectively." Mr. Scharf will be succeeded by Alfred Kelly, a member of Visa's board and a former president at American Express Co.

Like rival MasterCard Inc., Visa is a payment network that processes credit-card and debit-card transactions, making a percentage off each.

Visa, which faces intense competition from new financial-technology companies, has been active with its own digital efforts. Last week it introduced a bitcoin-style network called Visa B2B Connect. In July it struck a partnership with PayPal Holdings Inc., and it is also an investor in mobile-payments startup Square Inc.

In after-hours trading, Visa shares fell 67 cents to $82.50.

Write to Josh Beckerman at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 24, 2016 16:55 ET (20:55 GMT)

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